Early last December, Lane Kiffin sat in his office with a glass half-full. More than half-full, actually. He’d just gone 10-2 despite heavy-duty scholarship sanctions and a postseason ban. He was riding high off a November win at Oregon that had validated his every effort since leaving Tennessee. He even talked about beating a team like Alabama.

“You’d like to play against one of those great teams and see what happens,” Kiffin said. “It would’ve been great to see.”

If only quarterback Matt Barkley would eschew the upcoming NFL draft, Kiffin knew, then USC would have a shot to return to greatness in 2012. The outside world would see it that way, and the young coach would, too.

“You have a chance,” he’d told Barkley, “to be the greatest Trojan of all time.”

Kiffin believed Barkley and the Trojans could bring a national-championship trophy back to Troy. That’s what Pete Carroll had done (according to the final AP poll, though not the BCS standings) in his third season, following an 11-2 breakout in Year 2. Kiffin had a plan that could withstand those NCAA sanctions and help make his own third season unforgettable.

So, it turns out he was wrong. His Year 3 has been somewhere between boom and bust. Which way—boom or bust—will the 6-2, 18th-ranked Trojans end up leaning? That’ll be mostly decided by late evening on Saturday, when Oregon will either be admiring its still-unbeaten reflection in the mirror or angrily awaiting a rematch in the Pac-12 title game.

There should be much forgiveness for Kiffin in terms of his team’s performance between the white lines. Due to so many scholarship losses, depth was going to be a problem; it was unavoidable. True, Sporting News ranked USC No. 2 in the preseason, but that wasn’t very wise. In hindsight, we should’ve written something more like this: “Nick Saban would struggle to win 10 games with this team.”

But Kiffin said something else a year ago in his office that we’ve had several occasions lately to remember. He was talking about how much he’d grown in his career and in his life, from a 31-year-old, controversial head coach of the Oakland Raiders to a then-36-year-old, controversial head coach of USC.

Kiffin claims late Raiders owner Al Davis was wrong for branding him a “liar” in 2008. He claims to have made amends with Urban Meyer when after two months on the job at Tennessee, Kiffin publicly branded the then-Florida coach an NCAA cheater in 2009. Kiffin apologized within 24 hours.

Regardless, this is a coach who oozed controversy prior to returning to Los Angeles, where he’d been a star assistant under Carroll.

But Kiffin says that shooting from the lip at Tennessee was necessary; it was a central part of his plan to make a Vols program that had lost its “national juice” a hot topic again.

“I don’t have to do that here,” he said last December.

Yeah, well, so much for that.

The man oozes controversy still. He oozes apologies, too.

Thing is, these are stupid little controversies. And they are insincere little apologies.

They raise all sorts of good questions, none better than: Why, Lane?

There was the ridiculous coaches’ poll controversy just before the start of this season. Kiffin, a first-time voter, couldn’t believe Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez had voted the Trojans No. 1.

“I would not vote USC No. 1, I can tell you that,” he assured reporters.

Of course, we all know by now that’s exactly what Kiffin already had done.

Why, Lane?

“I apologize if somebody took that the wrong way,” his mea culpa went.

“I apologize if that was taken the wrong way,” he said after the ban was lifted by his own boss, athletic director Pat Haden.

Most recently, there was the ol’ jersey switcheroo in the Colorado game. Against a vastly inferior opponent on the business end of a 50-6 beating, Kiffin had a backup quarterback wear one number in the first half and a different one in the second half, so that when he came in to hold on a point-after play, he could instead run a two-point play.

That was one hell of a stunt.

For crying out loud, though. Why, Lane?

We’re probably overdue now for a nice thing to say about Kiffin, so here’s one (and it is sincere): He has no trouble giving props to Chip Kelly, whom Kiffin calls “a great guy” as well as, for now, anyway, the best coach in the Pac-12. And that’s good, because there’s no question Kelly is the best.

But if Kiffin wants something to apologize for, Kelly gladly will give it to him.

Barkley played down the Ducks’ revenge angle this week for reasons known only to him. “It’s a different team, different players, different location,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s really a factor.”

Hogwash. It’s a huge factor for Kelly, who likes to be, very simply, perfect.

“The playoffs started in college football on the first day of the season—and when you lose, you’re done,” he said this week.

Yep, that 2011 loss still stings.

There are many who see this year’s game as a mismatch. The Ducks might hang 50 on USC’s suspect defense, then—if the Trojans can claw their way into the Pac-12 title game—do it again a month down the road.

What would happen then? Would Kiffin get SEC-nasty in recruiting? Would he begin firing rockets toward Eugene? Would he fire his father, Trojans defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin?

If the Trojans pull off the upset on Saturday, wonderful; they’ll lean toward boom, not bust, in 2012.

The glass will be more than half-full again.

But if USC goes down—and more “national juice” for Kiffin’s program goes with it—don’t be surprised when the controversy comes.